


will we look back (and wonder when)

by SaraJaye



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: 1960s, F/F, Friendship/Love, Letters, Pre-Femslash, Present Tense, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5894887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/pseuds/SaraJaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you could go back to the past and change one thing, free of consequences, what would it be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	will we look back (and wonder when)

She's supposed to be doing her homework, but every now and then she catches sight of Rosie's journal, and she wonders.

_The girl with the long blonde hair._

May Clutterbucket never made it to California. Rosie McGee never saw her again.

It's just wrong, Riley thinks, dropping her pencil back into the macaroni-covered tin can Auggie made her for Christmas. May had a voice, but the moment she heard another she decided hers wasn't worth being heard. Rosie wanted to make a friend, but when she never heard from May again she decided it wasn't worth trying.

_If it were me, I would have spent the rest of my life looking for Maya. Even if we were old ladies on our deathbeds when I found her, it'd be worth it._

She'll always think of her and Maya as fulfilling what their grandmothers never had, but sometimes she wishes things could have turned out different for Rosie and May. If they'd kept in touch, Rosie might have finished her poem while May might have joined singers like Patsy Cline and Conway Twitty in the country music hall of fame.

"What if we could change that?" she asks. Maya looks up from pretending to write her essay for history class and gives her a funny look.

"Change what?" Oh, right, she hasn't explained. Sometimes she forgets that as close as she and Maya are, they can't read each other's minds.

"Rosie and May," Riley explains. "Remember? They never did become friends, and May never-"

"I know, never made it to Topanga Canyon, wasted lives, what might've been." Maya rolls her eyes and pushes her paper away. "Riles, we went over that over a year ago. Your dad taught us that history shapes the present and that's why we have to care about it, and we're not Rose and May so we didn't make their mistakes."

"I know, I know...but Maya, Rosie's poem makes me so sad. She never got to finish it because she gave up trying to find May again." Riley sighs, leaning against Maya's shoulder. "TV and books and movies say messing with the past wrecks the future. But if we could change one thing, without consequence..."

"You would bring them together again," Maya finishes. "Oh, pumpkin..."

"No consequence," Riley repeats. "We can't go back in time, I know that, but..."

"You're too sweet for your own good. You just want everything to be perfect and happy for everyone...it's why you're wonderful, but it also makes me sad." Maya's arm wraps around her waist, pulling her close. "Rosie and May gave up because they didn't really care about each other, Riley. They'd just met, they didn't know anything about each other beyond their talents and that's why Rosie never tried. That's why _May_ never bothered to write her any letters or call her or anything." She sighs, her other hand cupping Riley's chin. "They weren't like us."

Riley closes her eyes, nestling against Maya with a soft whimper.

"But that's too _sad_ , Peaches."

" _They_ were too sad. Them, Ginsberg, Scoggins, they all made the wrong choices. It's just how it was for them, and there's nothing we could've done to fix it even if we had the chance."

"I know, but..."

"Let me guess. You want to try anyway, don't you?"

"If we could manage to see my parents as kids without having to leave this room, I think we could meet Rosie and May again."

 

_May Clutterbucket shoves a ratty old songbook into her pack. Everything she owns is falling apart to some degree, she keeps promising herself she'll replace it when she makes it to California._

_For a moment, she considers a new guitar, but when she remembers Merlin Scroggins's voice, his jaunty tune and smiling face she shakes her head; her guitar is better off in the hands of someone who deserves it. Someone whose voice matters._

_She can get by on her drawing skills, right? Topanga Canyon's for all kinds of artists, and drawings can be as crazy as the artist wants. Not like music, which has to have a message. Not like writing, only useful in the hands of the talented._

_She'd told Rosie she'd be right back. She'd always been fairly good at lying._

 

"May!"

It happened, Maya thinks. Somehow, Riley wished them back to 1961, and they're watching May Clutterbucket walk aimlessly down the road.

"May," Riley calls again, "you forgot something back at the café."

"Riley, she can't hear-"

"I didn't forget it," May calls over her shoulder, and Maya yelps. When they did this with Riley's parents they'd been pretty much invisible the whole time. Then again, Riley hadn't been looking to interact with them.

It's still spooky, though.

"I think you should go get it back," Riley says, and Maya's heart breaks a little. It's not going to work, even if this is the one consequence-free thing they can do in 1961 May's not gonna listen and Riley's wasting her time and good intentions.

"Why bother? Merlin Scroggins's way better than someone like me could ever be." May shakes her head. "All this time I'd just been fooling myself, thinking my voice-"

"Your voice _matters!_ " Riley cries out. "May, you can't...I'm not going to let you give up! Please...take your guitar back, and keep singing. And...and don't give up on Rosie, either. Rosie could be the most important person in your life, and you'll never know if you run away."

May doesn't look like she's listening, and this time Maya's heart aches for _her._ She remembers when she didn't think she was worth Riley's time or efforts or love, a time when she almost ended the friendship because most parents wouldn't want their little girl anywhere near someone like her. She remembers Riley blocking the doorway as she tried to leave.

_My world needs you in it._

"Your world needs her in it."

May blinks, glancing over towards her.

"You..."

"I can't explain everything, it's too complicated. Just...don't let her go, May. Don't walk away from someone who could change your world."

Silence follows, thick and uncomfortable, before May sighs. There might be the ghost of a smile on her face, but it's hard to tell.

"I'll think about it."

 

_Rosie McGee sits in Café Hey until closing time, writing even after her hand's cramped up and she's getting tired. She crosses out every other word, knowing she may never finish the poem but refusing to give up._

_May said she'd be right back. Rosie wonders if she's already on the road to Topanga Canyon, without her guitar, and her eyes tear up a little. What's she going to do with a guitar she can't play, a guitar that belongs in someone else's hands? May's song still plays on loop in her head, and she lets the pen fall from her fingers with a sigh._

_She's an observer. She sees the world and the people in it, records everything in her journal for...for the sake of it, she guesses. Life is interesting, people are interesting and if she has kids someday she wouldn't mind passing down a full account of the life she's lived._

_But right now, everything she usually writes about passes her by as she's transfixed by the memory of the girl with the long blonde hair._

 

"Rosie?"

They catch her leaving the café just in time, and Riley sighs with relief. May said she'd think about it, but in the end it's up to Rosie. Just like in the end it's up to her to hope when everyone else is too afraid to.

Rosie turns around, guitar case in one hand, journal clutched to her chest with her other arm. She looks surprised, a little sad, but nowhere near as sad as May looked.

"Go after her," Maya says before Riley can open her mouth, and Riley smiled.

"What she said."

Rosie looks down at the guitar, then at Maya.

"I'll do my best."

 

_May hops on a bus heading for California as soon as she can. Right now she doesn't know what to believe, or even what she wants. Maybe a change of scenery will help with that._

_In the meantime, she trusts Rosie to take good care of her guitar and hopes she never stops writing. She wants to read her poetry in magazines someday, to see The Complete Works of Rosie McGee in stores._

_Smiling a bit, she takes out a piece of paper and a pencil._

 

They're home now, in their era, in Riley's room. Maya leans back against the bed, Riley's head in her lap.

"Do you think we did anything? What if after all that, they still never see each other again?" Riley asks. Maya strokes her hair, glancing over at the journal on the bookshelf.

"Then it's just how it was meant to be for them," she says, "and even more important that you and I are as close as we are now."

Riley doesn't look too happy, but she nods and cuddles closer anyway.

"If you walk out the door, I'll always come after you."

"You won't have to." Maya smiles. "Because I'll always come back."

 

_Six months later, Rosie finds a letter in her mailbox._

_"Dear Rosie,_

_I haven't made it to Topanga Canyon yet, but every day I think I'm getting closer. Sorry I never came back for my guitar, but maybe I'll get a new one. If not, well...look at the bottom of this letter."_

_It's a sketch of two women, one with a crown of flowers and another with a beret. They sit side by side, surrounded by flowers, birds and trees._

_A guitar sits beside the one with the crown._


End file.
